YouTube Gold: Cooper Flagg 2025 NBA Draft Scenarios
This could get interesting
This video breaks down Cooper Flagg’s potential NBA future and his fit with the various lottery teams - and why he might opt out.
He has nine days to decide - the last day is April 26th - and the draft lottery will be revealed on May 12th. Then, if he doesn’t like his prospects, he could pull out (by June 15th) and wait until next year and live on his rather considerable NIL money.
What are the odds of this?
Well, probably not that high, but it might depend. There are some franchises he might wish to avoid, notably Washington and possibly Brooklyn, Toronto and Portland. Maybe Charlotte too.
If one of those wins and he doesn’t want to play for the Wizards (and why would anyone want to do that?), he doesn’t have to.
This is not unprecedented. His Duke predecessor, Danny Ferry, was taken #2 in 1989 by the dreadful L.A. Clippers of the Donald Sterling era. Danny Manning greeted him there by saying “welcome to hell.”
Thus warned, Ferry played in Europe for a year and missed out on the Clippers experience, where Sterling made basketball a miserable experience. Just ask Olden Polynice.
But we’d like to propose a different scenario. Let’s say the Wizards win and Flagg, being a bright guy, says hell no. Not doing it.
We know that he’s a huge Celtics fan and you know Red Auerbach would have moved heaven and earth to get him to Boston.
So imagine that current GM Brad Stevens approaches Washington and offers some deals. Let’s say he offers Jaylen Brown for Flagg and two first-round picks from Washington, which seems fair since Flagg is unproven in the NBA. Or maybe an aging Jrue Holiday and multiple first-round draft picks between 2025 and, say 2031.
Washington could take that and still come away from this draft in a great situation. Not today perhaps but with multiple first-round picks, they’ll have a chance to either stockpile picks or work a big trade down the road.
And while Flagg might say no to the Wizards, we feel very confident that if Boston had the #1 pick, he’d be thrilled beyond words. There’s no way he’d say no to the Celtics, the team he grew up idolizing.